1. From the "I always assume everyone has heard about these already" department: Neil Gaiman's novel
Neverwhere is being adapted into a six-part radio drama, with a cast that's wall-to-wall British acting talent, led by James McAvoy as Richard Mayhew, Benedict Cumberbatch as the angel Islington, and Anthony Head & David Schofield as Messrs. Croup & Vandemar.
More details are on his blog.Also forthcoming from Neil Gaiman: his second
Doctor Who episode. Details are
not on his blog, except this one: that it guest stars Warwick Davis.
2. A recent discussion at
Ana Mardoll's blog got onto the subject of the loaded term "Mary Sue", and started trying to come up with more descriptive alternatives. Two terms have gained traction at the time of writing: "Magic Goose Hero" (so implausibly irresistible that all the characters want to grab on despite it making no sense for them to want to do so) for the character, and "Protagonist Centred Everything" for the problem. And this is the thing which came out in the discussion that I hope catches on, even if none of the actual terms do - that when a story revolves around an impossibly awesome protagonist, the protagonist and the problem are not one and the same. When the plot and other characters exist only to showcase how awesome the protagonist is, they're all part of the problem too.
3. Still reading along with
Mark Reads Tortall. Nearing the end of the last book in the Lioness Quartet now, and things are starting to really come together. It's not as easy to stick to the one-chapter-at-a-time schedule as it used to be.
4. One of the nice things about the new washing machine is that it has a delayed start function, which means that I can load it up before I go to bed and wake up to newly-washed clothes in the morning. In theory. In practice, I need more work on getting the timing right - I got up on Saturday morning and went to see if the laundry cycle was finished, and arrived just in time to see it start.
(Also in washing machine news: I don't need a new stool after all, because the existing laundry chair - which the laundry basket sits in while I'm taking clothes out and hanging them up - is a good height for the job.)
(Yes, it's an exciting life I lead. I've learned to live with it.)
5. If somebody had told me
Casino Royale opens with
Freddy Fisher going down for treason, I might have watched it much sooner. (Or perhaps not. But it did provide a nice unexpected moment of interest. As did
Alan Jackson's brief and ill-fated stint in MI6 a bit later, though him I admit I couldn't place until the credits.)
I don't think I'm really the target audience for this sort of thing, though; most of the big bravura action sequences had me, well before they ended, muttering "Yes, very nice, but can we get back to the plot now?"
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